Chapter XIV. Idiocy tactic

Al-Hamidiya Market, the most well-known market in Damascus and the entire Middle East, is situated in the center of old Damascus. It is a large building with a length of three kilometers, covered in an iron roof with numerous small holes that allow sunlight to pass through it, and it is paved with black basalt stones. It was constructed in its current form during the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid I’s rule in 1780 AD and received its name from him.

It begins in the Al-Darwishiyah neighborhood at the intersection of Al-Thawra Street and Al-Nasr Street. The initial section, which is home to a large number of mosques and historic structures, is situated near the Damascus Citadel. On its two stories, its sides are lined with stores of every description. It has many markets that branch out of it, each of which specializes in a particular kind of food. Commodities, or the Miskiya market’s focus on books and stationery, terminates at the entrance to the Damascene Temple of Jupiter and continues from there to the Umayyad Mosque’s square in the center of the old city.

Many historical and archeological landmarks along the perimeter of the market. Between Souq al-Hamidiyah and the famed Amarah area in Old Damascus, to the right, stands the famous Citadel of Damascus, which is preceded by the statue of the illustrious Islamic leader Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi and his mausoleum.

There is a historical library named after Al-Zahir Baibars that was constructed during his reign over the Levant and is located to the left of the enormous Jupiter columns. It is a magnificent cultural monument that continues to demonstrate how Damascus has been the most significant Eastern center for the transmission of culture, science, and knowledge throughout time.

Wherever you look in and around the market, it seems as though history started and will eventually come to a close here…

At least, the Levantines believe in this, based on their faith in Islam, which many narrations spoke of about the end of time, which will be here in this land of theirs, and specifically in a place close to this market, not far from it, at the eastern gate of ancient Damascus, a lighthouse called the White Lighthouse. Islamic historians think that it is the intended place that the Prophet Muhammad spoke about when he said that at the end of time, Jesus son of Mary will descend from heaven to earth, in the east of Damascus.

The end of time won’t come with stillness and tranquility, as both believers and atheists agree that it will come with an epic showdown that will inspire the greatest depictions of horror and terror throughout history, which no one will be left to discuss in the future. Following then, neither time nor any other living thing, rational or otherwise, will be able to recall it or tell its tale.

In an epic dance of cosmic collisions, explosions, and gases emitted, repeating the same beginning scene, when the Big Bang occurred from which the universe was born, atheists only refer to it as the end when energy runs out and the universe expands and expands until it freezes, or shrinks in on itself and is crushed.

The believers in God have no issues with the path to the end, which stretches, freezes, dances, and does what it does because there are many causes, and death is one of them. In the end, only God, the One, will remain, and the world will return to being without anyone else. At that point, a new chapter begins without time or death, allowing humans to be resurrected once more and spend eternity in either heaven or hell.

As for the Alawite sect in Syria, they have the secrets of the beginning and the end, time and place, galaxies, universes and planets, and even the secrets of life outside the planet, but rather the entire universe.

They simply keep these secrets, not only from strangers but also from their own followers and those of friendly sects. Its solutions are known only to a small number of the masters of the people, whom they refer to as the sheiks of the sect, and they inherit it among themselves from one generation to another. Whatever secrets you can imagine and think of, their answers are with them, and in their secret books, whose location no one else knows but their masters.

They are typically known for their ambiguity and secrecy. The Alawite sect is segregated from other faiths and restricted to a single region, whereas other sects encourage and seek to spread their views among people in order to gain more adherents.

a sect that is knowledgeable about the world’s mysteries…

Or, perhaps more precisely, they want people to think well of them in order to disguise the fragility and immaturity of their views.

When you are left with nothing to offer and persuade people of, you choose to withdraw from society. You start to project an air of mystery around yourself and suggest to others that you are hiding something that should not be known. When someone from outside the sect inquiries about these secrets, you respond that they are only known to the sect’s adherents. And when one of its adherents inquires, the response is that it is the monopoly of a group at a higher rank, and when someone inquiries from this group, the response is that it is the monopoly of the sheiks of the sect, and so on.

Then they allow their peers to influence them in their own ways. For example, one can believe that someone in the group of individuals knows secrets when, in fact, he denies doing so. Another might ask one of the sheiks a question and receive an absurd and illogical response. He, therefore, believes that the wise and knowledgeable sheik purposely created absurdities in order to conceal the reality about what he actually had. What a cunning individual he is.

Their books discuss them, so you won’t find a book by them unless its author has warned against publishing it to those who are unqualified, which is meant to mean those who won’t believe what is stated in them when, in reality, what is in them is just a collection of children’s stories before bedtime. They present them as the sect’s constitution and sacred books, and they request that it not be published under the guise of secrecy, so as to avoid being subjected to outside mockery, criticism, and intellectual pursuit, which would surely increase the sect’s adherents’ awareness of and knowledge of their petty superstitions.

For the followers to remain under control is better than many followers out of control, and the fewer the number, the better it can be controlled.

Their supporters have been intimidated by others under the guise of being a minority, “the majority is chasing us and trying to get rid of us” and the world community has pleaded for the support of the majority. While they ignore the fact that they have lived in this region for hundreds of years during which time Islamic empires, states, and sultans have gone through them without harming them.

Under the pretext of ignorance of the followers and the knowledge of the masters, in the twentieth century, the sect was led to be a functional sect, a tool used by whoever paid the appropriate price.

The Alawite sect has evolved into something resembling an organization, with a secret council governing it, and its adherents serving as both its spawning ground and devoted troops. It is no longer just a small minority. They bought every one they could afford with gold and money, then used iron and fire to rule over the mass of the populace for the advantage of the customer, who pays with unmatched generosity.

This strategy met with great success, not only among the Alawite sect but also in every sect or group of people that decided to rely on it.

It mainly depends on three main factors:

First, by intimidating the adherents in their immediate environment and inciting hostility among them by attacking people in the name of the sect or organization, everyone ends up in the boat of the gentlemen, where if one of them perishes, everyone perishes along with them. This, of course, gives them the power to relax and enjoy the sea while the others toil day and night to fix the boat and keep it from sinking.

Second: Having the followers believe they are an inferior class to the gentlemen and those in question, that they lack the qualifications to understand the secrets or to handle them, and that they must first pass through a lengthy series of rigorous examinations and rituals. However, this series must come to an end before they are qualified to know it. In other words, if one of them can pass the tests, which he will finish at an advanced age, and after he gets involved and drowns in what he cannot disavow or escape from, then he will be ready, Not to know her, but to play his part in the play.

Third: Terrorism and repression to terrify anyone who dared to disagree with the masters’ viewpoint under the guise of the public good and to stop anyone from rebelling. Any rebellious attempt will result in expulsion from the group and possibly the entire universe.

It was appropriately labeled an idiocy tactic.

Because the followers are viewed as a herd of ignorant idiots who are incapable of understanding, and since actual knowledge belongs to a small group of essential players who should never be questioned regarding any issue or choice they make. While they have knowledge that others lack, as well as perceptions that others are blind to.

Furthermore, if the members of this sect and its doctrine are given control over the prison and its inmates, the prison environment will not become any less bizarre than the sect.

In the infamous Sednaya jail, sometimes known as the “human slaughterhouse,” inmates are divided into groups and kept apart from one another. Each group lives in its own section, with its own rules.

Not everyone in this slaughterhouse is flayed, but some are given royal care instead. Surprisingly, the convicts who receive the most luxurious treatment are also among the most hazardous for the regime and national security.

There are numerous sections to it, but one is particularly crucial since some of the people in it are still undergoing testing before they can join the sect’s sheiks as sheiks.

Not the Alawite sect, but a brand-new sect that is under development. When the prison doors are unlocked, it will have followers who do not comprehend and masters who are aware of all the secrets and ready to guide the herd.

In a small library, at the corner of Al-Hamidiya market, a little before the Umayyad Mosque to the right, a man with a light beard approached the owner of the library, looking troubled and frightened.

-Hello sir

-Hello, how can I help you?

-My friend told me that you have a book of One Thousand and One Nights.

-He paused for a moment, then added: Who sent you?

-My friend Suleiman

He turned his back and headed for a door inside the library.

He entered the bookstore, and from a hidden shelf among the shelves, he took out the book A Thousand and One Night

The customer took the book, and his hand trembled with fear.

He paid for it, turned his back, and walked away.

In Syria, not all books are permissible to buy, sell, or read.

And if you have a forbidden book in your hands, you will end up hanging on a torture wheel in one of the security branches.

There are two ways in which you cannot acquire those books that are prohibited from circulation, particularly those that establish an aberrant ideological view.

The first is to go to one of the secret libraries of the followers of this thought

The second is to be a prisoner in the appropriate section of Saydnaya prison